Wild
by openwindows
Summary: Rae's mother was a quileute, but left when she was sixteen, vowing she would never return. At her parents death, Rae moves to La Push with her two sisters. And then the wolves descend. Embry/OC imprint story.
1. Death & Discovery

All credit goes to Stephanie Meyer!

Rae belongs to Pup-of-Power. This story is a reply to her Twilight Werewolves Challenge.

The only thing that belongs to me is the plot, and Rae's family.

**Chapter One.**

I stared at the empty hallway. The cottage seemed gray and dreary. Dead, and rotten. Dust lay in a thick layer over everything. I could actually see my footprints in the dust that covered the hall as I moved forward towards the old living room. The wallpaper on the walls was peeling, and the color had dulled from exposure to the sun, and the floorboards creaked ominously. I half expected them to break under my weight and dump me into a pit of spiders.

Speaking of spiders, cobwebs hung from every corner. There was not a single piece of furniture, in the house. There was no electricity, and something in the plumbing had broken, so when I turned on the tap in the kitchen it practically exploded, and covered the kitchen counter in brown much. And I was soon discover that the toilet couldn't flush.

Home sweet home.

But at least it was my new home, and I now had a roof over my head. I would be able to fix everything up. For now, this derelict ruin of a cottage was the only thing I had apart from two suitcases with my clothes in. I had furniture, but it was currently in storage in Seattle since I hadn't known what I would actually be able to fit into the cottage. I just wished my mother was here to help me. She had been an interior designer and architect, and she would have been able to fix this place up in a jiffy.

I sighed at the thought of my mother, and wrapped my arms around myself in a sorrowful attempt of comfort.

I guess your wondering why on earth I am in this horrible little cottage in the first place with only two suitcases of clothes, and my mother is not with me. The reason is she can't be here. She vowed when she was sixteen that only over her dead body would she return to La Push. I guess she died happy knowing she kept to her vow.

My mother and father died in a car crash a month ago. I was devastated. I was only nineteen, happily going to college studying English literature in Utah where my family lived on a large ranch. My dad considered himself a regular old cowboy, and we raised horses. You know, good old wild mustangs. I am the oldest of four children. All girls. And suddenly I was on my own with a large ranch on my hands, and three children.

Luckily my sister Enna hardly counts as a child any longer. She's a science genius, so she got a scholarship and started college in New York last year. However the two youngest of us... no way were they going to be able to look after themselves. Felicia and Haley, who were eight and five. Our parents will stated that I was to be given guardianship of all my siblings. However there are apparently rules for this sort of thing. First of all, you have to have a job.

Getting a job meant I had to quit college. I would not have time for both a job and a degree. I wouldn't have the money either. Then there was the matter of getting a job. A job that earned me enough money to support two children. A legal job obviously. Except nineteen year-old girls with only half a college degree, with two kids, dark native American skin, and no former work experience except riding like a cowboy, didn't get jobs that earned them good money. I was practically in despair. So I panicked. I contacted my mother's family. The family she had sworn she would never see hide or tail of again in her life.

I guess your wondering why I didn't contact my dad's family. The reason for that is that they freaked when my dad married a native American. He and my mother had left them behind in Los Angeles, complaining about how the damned gypsy girl had seduced their eldest son and stopped him from becoming a world-famous lawyer. I can't possibly imagine my cowboy-dad being a stiff old lawyer. Point was that I hardly thought they would be happy to help said damned gypsy's kids.

I thought our mothers family would be more helpful. I mean, they always sent us Christmas cards even if my mother always put them in the shredder. Which meant they still cared even just a little bit. Dad's family only ever sent us hate-mail. The problem with mum's family was that in mum's words, "they were the most messed up family in the entire universe and their dad didn't deserve to breathe the same air as normal people, but should live in a toxic bubble and die a slow death".

That and my mother had always thought the small town life of La Push was dreary and boring. I don't quite see what was much better about Utah, but at least it was more sunny here. And we had snow in winter instead of rain.

Me and my sister's never really knew what was so messed up about mum's family. We didn't know anything about them except that she believed her father was the devil incarnate, and she had several cousins. I think one of them was the one who sent us the Christmas cards, but I don't know since we never got to open them before they got shredded.

I considered waiting for Christmas and just writing a letter back to the return address. However I didn't have time to wait for Christmas. So I ransacked my mother's office.

My parents had each their office. These were the only rooms in the house that we had to have permission prior to entering. They were our parents secret kingdoms. And I was sure that somewhere there must be some kind of contact to her family in La Push.

While I searched I carefully organized the things of hers that I wanted to keep, which things could be sold, and which things were just for the trash. Then I found it. An old address book. You might think, well that wasn't that hard! Except I only found this address book after having gone through everything in the room twice, and the only thing left I the room was her old desk and her office chair.

I was going through the drawers in the desk for the millionth time, double checking that there wasn't some stray item in the back that I had missed. And that was when I realized that the bottom drawer wasn't deep enough. As in that the actual drawer looked deeper from the outside then it seemed to be in real life.

I pried out the wooden board that was in the bottom of the drawer, and lo and behold! A secret compartment. I paused. It was pretty obvious that my mother had gone to fairly extreme lengths to stop all contact with anyone at all from La Push. Shredding Christmas letters (the shredder had been bought in the first place with this purpose in mind), secret compartments in her desk, no contact whatsoever, having made the vow never to return.

However I was desperate. I had no one to turn to, and I had two little girls who needed me to secure their future. I wasn't going to let then live in a caravan on some random dumpster somewhere in America. Maybe that was a bit exaggerated, and a caravan would be pretty cool, but they deserved more then that. So I went through everything in that secret compartment.

I learned more about my mother's family that day then in my whole nineteen years of life prior to that. I learned that she had a sister. I assumed it was this sister that sent us the Christmas cards, since from the letters and photo's in the drawer, they seemed extremely close. I guessed there were about two to three years between the two of them. They had three aunts and several cousins of various ages.

The letters discussed three close cousins, however it alluded to that there were several more then that. One of these close cousins was married. It all seemed terribly complicated, and the letters from our mother's sister sometimes held a note of hysteria, and I began to understand that while my mother's family had been messed up when she had left, it had only become more complicated and messed up later.

Mum's cousin's boyfriend had fallen in love with mum's sister. Mum's cousin's daughter had some sort of obscure "imprint" relationship with a sixteen-year-old boy, which I didn't understand. And the letters kept talking about the wolves, and I began to wonder if they were some kind of gang, because Mum's sister mentioned that her boyfriend was the "Alpha" of it, and their youngest cousin had joined it, and their cousin (the one who had been mum's sister's boyfriend's girlfriend before) had also joined. I didn't understand any of it it at all. It was all hopelessly complicated.

At the end of each letter, our mother's sister, my aunt really now I think of it, had attached her address and telephone number, as if hoping that one day her older sister would actually reply. I filed through the letters and found the most recent. I dialed the number.

"_Emily Young speaking."_

"Hi, I'm Rae Grayson."

"_What can I do for you?"_

"I'm your niece."

"_My neice?"_

"Yeah, Sarah's daughter. I um, need some help."

"_Sarah's daughter? What kind of help?"_

"Sarah and my dad, Ronald, died two weeks ago. To get guardianship of my two younger sisters I need a job, and I don't know what to do, and I can't talk to my dad's family because they think our mother was a demon from hell, and I know mum hasn't talked to you for nineteen years, and you were only thirteen back then, but I need someone to help me, because I'm only nineteen so I am completely at a loss, and..."

"_Wait, slow down, Sarah is dead?"_

"They were in a car crash. A lorry was attempting to make a U-turn and didn't see them. They died on impact. The car caught on fire,and I was told there wasn't much left. They wouldn't let me see."

There was silence in the other end. Then I heard sniffing, and quiet sobbing. I could hear mumbling in the background, as if she were talking quietly to someone on the other end. Then a man took the phone from her.

"_Hell? Rae Grayson right? I'm Sam, Emily's fiancée. Do you still live at your old address?"_

"Yeah."

"_Okay, we'll be on the next plane there."_

I was so grateful. So very, very grateful. Some adults were coming. Adults who (I hoped) cared about what happened to us.

Sam and Emily stuck to their word, and were there within the week. I was practically sobbing with relief when we picked them up in the airport. Of course I noticed Emily's scars, but I ignored them, simply glad that she was here. They came back to the house with us and we agreed to discuss what to do in the morning.

By then I had sorted through most of the things in the entire house, sorting through what we wanted to keep, what we wanted to sell, and what I threw in the trash.

We still had the horses, though I had fired all our stable hands except one. Without a job we didn't have the money to keep them all hired. I knew we couldn't keep the ranch. It had never supported itself financially. We had gotten our money from mum's architectural pieces and interior designing, and from my dad working part-time as a journalist. So I knew a good deal of our twenty-five horses would have to go.

I spent the morning working in the stables. I had to work hard since I only had one stable-boy left now. It was out in the stables that Emily found me.

"How much do you know about your mother's family?" She asked me cautiously. I paused in my brushing of one of the mustangs.

"Not much. She didn't tell us anything except that her family was messed up and her father was the devil incarnate. I found out most of what I know from reading the letters in her desk after she died. I discovered that you were her sister, and that she had several cousins. There were many complications, though I didn't understand half of it." I replied.

Emily simply nodded.

"Me and Sam have been talking. There's this old cottage in La Push. Sarah and I were raised their. Our mother left it to Sarah in her will. Sort of hoped she would eventually come back. Its in awful condition, and I mean truly awful, it doesn't even have electricity, but we'll help you fix it up and you could live there with your sisters. There are bedrooms enough. And you could get a job there and me and Sam would always be close by to help you out. There is a large bit of attached land which I guess you could fence in so you could keep a few of the horses." Emily explained, watching me closely to gauge my reaction.

My face lit up.

"Oh Emily, that would be wonderful. How can I eve thank you enough?"

She shock her head, a small smile gracing her scarred face.

"What's family for? And anyway, you shouldn't be thanking me. The cottage is rally in the most horrible condition ever."

An that was how I ended up standing in that derelict dusty of cottage. We had sold all the horses except three. Two horses, Bones and Spock, and a pony called Buttercup which belonged to Felicia and Haley. Sam and some friends of his had fenced in and cleared some of the land, and erected a cheap small stable which would do fine for just the three horses. Doing all of that had meant they had no time to do anything to the cottage before we came. We had sold the ranch, put the things we didn't need for now in storage. For now until the cottage was fixed up Felicia, Haley and I were staying with Sam and Emily.

And even though what Emily had said was true, and that cottage was in the most awful condition ever, I loved it. Because it was mine. And it was giving me the chance to start over and to keep Felicia and Haley. It was for now, Home sweet home.


	2. The introduction of Embry Call

**Chapter Two.**

My alarm clock rang at 5 O'clock in the morning. I answered it with a groan, and felt severely tempted to fling in across the room, or at least knock it onto the floor. However I felt way to tired to reach over and push it over. I thanked God when it stopped without my assistance. However I was not allowed to sleep longer despite that.

"Rae, Rae! Wake up, we have to feed the horses before school!" Felicia whispered excitedly.

Oh yeah, that was why it was set to ring at 5 O'clock. Dastardly time of the day. Sleepily I groaned, and Felicia accepting it as her reply, began jumping up and down on the bed. Moving in slow motion I pulled on a pair of jeans, a clean t-shirt and socks, and seeing that Felicia was already dressed, I opened to back door, grabbed my boots, and the both of us slipped out into the cold misty morning.

It was not far to walk to the cottage. It was only about half a mile from Sam and Emily's house. Now properly awakened by the freezing air, we worked quickly and effectively, feeding, watering and brushing down the horses before letting them out into the paddock that Sam and his friends had built, so the horses could exercise themselves and graze. I stroked Bones affectionately. He was getting old the silly thing. He had been mine for ages, but there was still plenty of life and energy in him. I silently promised him I'd take him for a ride today. That done we raced back to the house, eager to get out of the cold.

As we entered the back door and pulled off our boots, Emily's half-smiling face poked around the corner.

"Your back in time for pancakes." She said cheerfully, before returning to the kitchen, Felicia and I following her towards the heavenly smell.

Haley was dressed and already shoveling chocolate chip pancake into her mouth. I thanked God for Emily. She was wonderful and motherly towards the two young ones. However it was not the sight of Haley shoveling food down her throat like there was no tomorrow that made me hesitate before siting down beside her. Rather it was the sight of the three hulking giants crowded around the other end of the table.

Sam was huge. There was no two ways about that, and I had wondered what on earth he did for a job that gave him muscles like that. However these three guys were just as muscular. Then a tall girl entered the kitchen, and she was muscular as well. Not as big as the guys, but still, tall and I bet she had a six-pack under that tank top.

"Guys, this is Rae and Felicia, my other two nieces. Girls, this is Jacob, Quill and Seth. And this is Leah." Emily introduced.

"Seth and Leah, your my mother's cousins aren't you? And Quill is Claire's imprint, right?" I asked curiously while Emily placed a plate of pancakes in front of me.

Everyone stiffened, and the atmosphere was suddenly tense. My mother was certainly not kidding when she said this family is messed up.

"Yeah. How do you know that? What do you know about imprints?" Emily asked calmly, though she still looked extremely tense as she turned back to the pancakes.

"You mentioned it in your letters to my mother. I have no idea what an imprint is, in fact most of your letters were extremely confusing."

The atmosphere slowly relaxed again.

"I'm really just Claire's babysitter. It gives good money." Quill said with a wide grin.

Another giant came in through the kitchen door, rubbing his eyes sleepily, not really looking where he was going, and bumping into one of the chairs.

"And this is Embry, Embry this is Haley, Felicia and Rae."

Embry looked at us with sleepy bleary eyes. All of a sudden his eyes were wide open, and he was staring at me. I suddenly felt very self-conscious. Did I have hay in my hair or something? Anxiously I combed a hand through my long black hair. Jacob, fairly forcefully, took Embry's arm and pulled him down into the seat beside him.

Everyone else didn't seem to notice. Emily continued piling pancakes onto peoples plates, Haley continued chatting merrily to Quill who feigned interest so well that I thought he was actually interested, Seth was teasing Felicia who was blushing beet red, and Leah was turning the spoon in her cup of hot chocolate, seeming far away in he thoughts.

So I ignored it too. It was Haley and Felicia's first day at school here in La Push, and I had no time to think about other things. So many things could go wrong! What if they were bullied? What if they didn't make any friends? What if they were behind in their studies? What if they hated it here and wanted to go back to Utah? What if they fell off a swing and broke a leg? What if they got hit in the head by a ball in gym? What if the school got nuked? There were so many what-ifs!!!

That and after we dropped them off at school, Emily and I were going wallpaper shopping so we could start fixing up the cottage which was now mine.

"Rae, there has been some changes in plans." Sam said as he came in, grabbing a blueberry muffin straight off the frying pan, not caring about the temperature.

I was so flabbergasted by what he had done that I hardly heard what he said next.

"Quill will take Haley and Felicia to school since he has to pick Claire and her sister up for school anyway. And Embry and Jake will take you paint shopping. Emily has a doctors appointment this morning, and I sort of wanted to go with her."

"That's fine." I said in between mouthfuls of pancake.

It didn't feel fine. I was strung so tight worrying about Haley and Felicia that I almost vomited in the sink while I washing up after breakfast. And to make my day worse, I was going to go paint shopping with the guy who hadn't stopped staring at me like some sort of creepy perv since he had laid eyes on me that morning.

The only improvement to my day was that I actually genuinely enjoyed Jacob's company. We drove in his Rabbit. That was what he called his shabby car, of which he was very proud. Apparently he had built it himself. I guess he noticed that I looked a bit off color, because he tried hard to make me think about anything except Haley and Felicia's first school day, my parents, or why on earth Emily had a doctors appointment.

"So Rae, how about you and Embry go looking for paint, I have to pick up something from the post office for my dad." Jacob announced once we got to Seattle.

I simply nodded, lost in my thoughts.

"I want happy colors." I announced to myself more then Embry as we entered the shop.

He looked sideways at me and nodded.

"All right, lets go." He said with a grin, slinging his arm around me as he grabbed a trolley.

It felt so casual and friendly that I laughed, and smiled up at him. Maybe he, and my day, wasn't all bad after all.

We filled up the trolley. I had found a pretty mint green for my room, plain white for the kitchen, dining room and living room to make the rooms seem bigger and lighter despite the small windows in the cottage, a cheerful light blue for Felicia's room, and bright yellow for Haley's room. And I found that I was really having fun with Embry. I was still deliberating over what color to paint the guest room. That was when Embry sprung his question on me.

"You could rent out the guest room you know."

I looked at him like he was mad.

"Who would want to rent a room in a house with no electricity? I don't have enough money to actually fit electricity to the house. All the money from selling our old house is going to go into renovating the cottage so the roof doesn't fall down over our heads. And the money we got for the horses is going into a college fund for Felicia and Haley. We're going to have to make do with batteries for lamps and gas for the cooker until I somehow earn enough money. No one is going to want to rent that room." I announced firmly.

He blushed.

"I would. I've been thinking about moving out for a while. My mother and I don't really... get along."

I regarded him steadily for a while. I trusted him. He was a good friend. And Sam and Emily trusted him, and I trusted them. And there was nothing wrong in it. People rented rooms out to people of the opposite sex all the time without anything romantic or inappropriate happening. I smiled.

"All right. What color do you want your room to be? Your going to have to help me renovate the whole thing if you want to rent a room there."

His face lit, and I felt myself smiling, simply because he was smiling. And I couldn't stop it.

"You drive a hard bargain miss Grayson. But I'll take it." He announced gallantly, picking out a eggblue and putting it in the trolley.


End file.
